


the sun in wintertime

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Dominance, M/M, Submission, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 19:45:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18289004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Thank you for reading.





	the sun in wintertime

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.

Inquiries led him nowhere.

 

Eren opted for the long route through turreted towers, suspended ramparts languishing in the cutting breeze over his head. He appreciated campus in these quiet moments when everyone with any sense was sleeping, or reading, windows unopened.

 

But Levi was usually up around now.

 

His friends weren’t forthcoming with their knowledge of the professor’s haunts, though Jean cheekily suggested knocking on the President’s door.

 

Writing beside him, Marco flushed with a soft rebuke, prompting Jean to arrest him in the act of a violent kiss.

 

Eren had left them, then, not without contemplating Jean’s suspicion.

 

He’d filed it in his head as an open secret, the way Levi deferred to the President, obeyed all instructions, no matter how minor, sometimes subjecting himself to deliberate humiliation with what Eren understood as a perverse satisfaction.

 

We are all of us privy to this play, he thought, this strange entertainment with an enthralled audience. Eren doubted he’d sit through the next act.

 

Thankfully he recalled the faculty lodgings from his many visitations at Armin’s side, his childhood companion tireless in his attention to their professors’ guidance. Most lived in clusters, inhabiting what had once been a scriptorium to monks working in cloisters as scribes of holy works. These claustrophobic, damp dwellings shadowed the President’s housing, an elegant structure meant for more than one inhabitant, what with its many Gothic windows, staring outward through candlelit eyes, eerily aware. Eren marvelled at the upkeep of its greenery, vines shrouding pale grey brick in a strangled tangle.

 

Approaching the door, he shut his eyes against chilled woodwork beneath his fingers.

 

With barely a press, the door opened all on its own.

 

“What in the name of fuck,” Eren said, low.

 

Not bothering to close the door behind him (it’d shut on its own anyway), he strode through the dark foyer, balking at the alarming humidity, the very wallpaper encased in sweat. Up a cramped staircase, his steps swallowed by dark velvet carpet, there came an abrasive hum of sound, the ringing following a hard hit.

 

Trampling in an effort to best himself, Eren lunged at the first dark door standing ajar, his breath choked to rasping. Again with the ringing.

 

Peeking around the doorknob, his heart lapsed into a fading murmur.

 

Levi, supine over a rough desk chair, arms held behind his back, smarted at the wrapping of a riding crop across his ass, administered by none other than the President himself, Erwin Smith.

 

Hissing, Eren slammed the door open.

 

“What in the _hell_ do you think”

 

He didn’t finish before Levi intoned a single word, solemn and harsh, and Erwin relented, lowering the riding crop and registering Eren with the full approximation of his distaste. A cruel hint of malice curled his swollen lips.

 

Eren stepped forward, halting when Levi snagged his wrist, taut, bristling with an intensity that staggered everyone in his environment in awe. His dark, sleepless eyes haunted the heart.

 

“You’re gonna forget about this assault to your senses, Eren, and with it your question; you’re pretending you want an answer.”

 

Absurdly, Eren recalled something Marco had complimented Levi on at length to Jean, and indirectly to himself, over dinner: “He’s a terribly good prof because he doesn’t talk down to you; you’re his equal. He’s not teaching you something he’s dangling over your head; you’re learning together.”

 

A shame, that; here he was, the very same man, betraying Marco’s vision, suggesting Eren knew nothing of complex entanglements, devious lust.

 

As to his question, well, Levi was right. He’d known the answer from the beginning, but this form of confirmation didn’t hurt any less.

 

He tore himself free of his professor’s maddening grip and fled.

 

He’d lain waste to his dignity before; one night of mindless arousal might alleviate the sorrow. But it would come back because it always did. He thought of Levi as he ate, as he slept, as he remembered with bitter fondness how sleep came easily to him in his youth.

 

It was easy to forget he still had his youth; his thoughts of Levi aged him beyond his understanding, acquainted him with a sorrow beyond curing.

 

Slicing his crisp collar down his nose, eyes brightening with tears, he swallowed. With any luck, tomorrow might heal him.


End file.
